


define who I am

by Tsume_Yuki



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom, Rigel Black Chronicles
Genre: Dimension Travel, Female Harry Potter, Gen, Inspired by The Rigel Black Chronicles, fanon meets canon, of the accidental kind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26604427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsume_Yuki/pseuds/Tsume_Yuki
Summary: In which Archie and Harry stumble into canon HP.
Relationships: Harry Potter | Rigel Black & Arcturus Rigel Black
Comments: 56
Kudos: 354





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title is literally the line of the song I was listening to as I reached the title box.
> 
> No promises on consistency of updates 🙃

When Harry comes downstairs for his first breakfast at Grimmauld Place, the last thing he was expecting to find were two other kids that he most certainly didn’t know, no matter how achingly familiar they appeared. 

The girl is just like looking in a (slightly distorted) mirror. Same green eyes, same Potter mess for hair... but, you know, female. 

The boy sitting next to her is, in some strange way, even worse. He looks like Sirius; if Sirius ever had a son, this is exactly how Harry would picture him. Jealously burns within him for a moment over the possibility that this boy actually is Sirius’ son. That, with his own son, Sirius wouldn’t want him anymore. But that wouldn’t explain the girl who looks like him. Nor would it explain the positively flummoxed adults who are all sitting up to the kitchen table to stare at the duo. 

It doesn’t explain the way the boy looks at him and gawks. 

“Whoa,” he gasps, elbowing the girl. “Look, it’s a boy Harry!” The boy continues to stare, but his eyes never venture up to the famous scar.

“I think you should just call me Rigel,” says the girl who is also apparently Harry, her arms folded across her chest and a thoughtful frown on her face. “Less confusing that way.”

“Less confusing? Rigel’s my middle name, not yours.”

“But have you ever actually used it?” 

The boy hums, scratching lazily as the side of his cheek. In the meantime, Harry watched in surprise as the closely cropped hair slowly begins to lengthen, right up until it’s near a mirror of Sirius’ own. Only, you know, healthy.

“Point, Cuz.” Laughing grey eyes turn on him, a smile sliding across the boy’s face like it’s an easy thing, natural in a way that such an expression has never come to Harry. “Hey, alternate Harry. I’m Archie and this is Harry, though call her Rigel. We’ve sorta slipped through dimensions, I guess. The adults were just about to catch us up to speed.” 

If there was ever any doubt that this ‘Archie’ boy was telling the truth, the thought is shattered by how the two react to the knowledge there’s a Dark Lord running about. Archie goes pale, every part of him, skin, hair, eyes; it all goes white. The serious set that takes over girl Harry, Rigel as she wants to be called, is somehow even worse a reaction. The way her brows sit heavy over her eyes, a green even brighter than his own (unnaturally bright, some might say) is the only real reaction. But that screams louder than words. She’s tense. 

Harry wonders if this is what his own face had looked like when his name got spat out of the Goblet last year. 

“But, who is You-Know-Who?” Archie asks, scratching at the back of his neck with a frown on his face, shooting a look to Rigel before he suddenly slumps. Whatever it is he’s read in Rigel’s face, it answer enough for Archie; the other teen drops his head into his hands and shakes his head in despair. 

“Merlin. Can’t even get away from him in another universe.” 

Harry’s not quite sure what is better; the thought of a world where Voldemort never rose and instead there’s Lord Riddle running political rings around the Wizarding World, or their own universe. A world where his parents are alive but he cannot attend Hogwarts. A world where the child of James and Lily Potter is actually invested in potions.

Sirius is sitting in his chair at the head of the table, seemingly torn between the horrifying thought of ‘pureblood Hogwarts and a Harry Potter who likes potions’ and the wistful longing for ‘Prongs and Lily alive and a som of his own’. 

Archie Black has taken a seat at the table now, only pausing in his efforts to regal them of his world in order to goggle at Kreacher. Apparently, the house elf had left with Sirius’ younger brother. The racist wanker of an elf disappears after hearing this news and Harry thinks no more on it, instead listening to Archie’s words and trying to not stare at the girl version of him.

She’s quiet like he is, watches everyone in the room like him. Harry’d thought it was a ‘hunted by Voldemort’ thing, but maybe not. 

He wishes he’d had a cousin like Archie, lovely and boisterous and clearly a dependable partner in crime. It seems pretty shitty that he got Dudley instead. 

Mrs Weasley and Kingsley, the only other adults present, seem to be physically restraining themselves from bombarding the two visitors with questions. Harry doesn’t miss how Mrs Weasley eyes Rigel like she’s already planning to up her portion size for breakfast. Admittedly, she is skinny. But, in a physically fit way? He’d probably put better money on Rigel than he would himself in a fight against Dudley. 

“Can you get back?” Harry finds himself asking, offering Mrs Weasley a pleasant ‘thank you’ when she presents with him a breakfast plate. 

Archie’s mouth snaps shut and he shares a glance with Rigel, their lips thinning in a near mirror of expression. It’s eerie. 

“It should be possible,” Rigel says after a second of silence too long, her face serious as she thinks. “But it’s going to take some research. Probably some experimentation too.” 

“Good thing we have you, Cuz!” Archie chirps, throwing one arm over her shoulder and grinning bright.

That’s the scene that Snape walks into, Dumbledore right behind him.

That’s ‘round about the time Rigel (Harry’s alternate self, a person who he could have been if things were different) spots Snape and proceeds to give them all a heart attack with her downright cheerful, “Professor Snape!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some background...

“What do you mean she disappeared.”

It’s not a question.

The Rookwood chit (some third cousin of Augustus, the useful Rockwood) stutters out a reply, a repeat of what she has already said but Tom is beyond listening to her. 

Instead, he forces his shoulders to relax ever so slightly into the back of his chair, forces himself to ignore the burn of indignation that comes with having to acknowledge Potter’s existence and the fact he cannot banish her from Britain. 

The folly of youth indeed. If he’d known that the Diary would have come around to bite him as thoroughly (and venomously) as this, he’d have destroyed it himself. Clearly his mind at that age had been more of a haze, a cocktail of rampant emotions, than he previously believed. To go so far as to attack the creator-

But no. To say he blames all of this upon the Diary would be falsity at its worst. The truth is, he wishes to blame anything other than Potter herself. Because to lay the culpability at her feet would be to otherwise admit that she had fooled him too. And she had fooled him.

It’d taken a great deal of political clout, of long overdue favours and clandestine blackmail, to put a suitable enough spin upon it. To present the whole thing as if it were his master plan all along and that exhibiting the application of fresh blood into a near stagnated pureblood line (for all of society have whispered about the age of Auror Potter’s parents before his birth) had been his idea. 

Blackmailing the Minister into creating a false contract signed four years prior, giving Potter a free pass to impersonating Heir Black in order to prove a point, bullying Auror Potter into pretending he’d agreed to this madness all along due to their distant Peverell relations (and doesn’t the Parseltongue make fucking sense now?) ; none of it had been what Tom wanted to do.

He’d wanted to get his hands around Potter’s neck and squeeze until those vivid green eyes had popped out her head. 

But he’s no fool. He’s done his research on life debts; he knows that to turn upon one you owe with murderous intentions is to doom himself. That, until she actually calls in on that debt she’s as safe as can be from him is simply the snitch on the pitch; the expected state of the world. 

He’s going to obliterate the Diary once he finds that condemned essence.

If it weren’t for the fact it is predominately his plans the Potter Heiress had so thoroughly fucked over, Tom would have even said he was impressed by her. Certainly a true Slytherin, one he’d recruit to the SOW Party in a heartbeat. Perhaps the first recruit he’s ever seen with such blistering potential.

And oh, how obvious it is now why his blackmail attempts didn’t work for the Tournament, how sure the girl had been that Harriet Potter wouldn’t care if Rigel threw her under the Knight Bus. Of course not; she was the one doing the throwing. 

He hadn’t been able to plan accordingly because the idea that he wasn’t talking to Heir Black had never even crossed his mind. 

Slippery snake indeed.

And now she’s missing with that useless cousin of hers. 

Of course he’s keeping eyes on her, how can he not when they must work together now or thoroughly destroy themselves will pulling down the other? Everything he has worked for hangs on the thread of the girl playing along. Just as she no doubt knows he will ruin her, her family and everything she holds dear should she try to implode his own plans any further. 

Regardless, the sheer amount of skill she’d exhibited in the Tournament, in the hijacked third task where he’d almost been killed by his own teenaged melodrama (never again, he will keep a wide focus now, of course the diary would be able to deduce his own protections, it was arrogant to assume it couldn’t learn as he did) has proven part of his original point.

Fresh blood brings power.

And, for all that dark pureblood society currently loathe her, none can deny that Harriet Potter is not the most powerful of her entire generation. The most powerful to walk Hogwarts’ halls since Tom himself. 

Which makes it all the more aggravating that she has disappeared. 

“Where was Heiress Potter last?” Tom cuts the rambling of the Rockwood girl off, waiting impatiently for the chit to gather her thoughts enough to actually answer him. He hardly wishes to address the girl by her title but to degrade her would be to make it obvious that they have not, in fact, been secretly working together the entire time. The Party is less than happy; a decade ago, they would no doubt have tried something particularly ill advised. Regardless, the push for the marriage law that didn’t get to happen (another issue to lay at Potter’s feet) has softened them to the ideas of halfbloods.

Not Potter herself, who remains persona non grata. But halfbloods as a whole aren’t too badly viewed. He needs that to improve, or the ancient lines with ancient gifts that once burned so bright will soon fizzle out.

And for that, he needs Potter to not be missing so that she can prove a halfblood’s worth. 

“The- the Lower Alleys, my Lord.” 

Of course Potter would disappear from a place Lord Riddle cannot investigate. It appears this will require a disguise.


	3. Chapter 3

“She likes potions.”

Potter repeats it again and Archie simply nods his head, watching his cousin metaphorically strong arm Professor Snape into a discussion on her shape imbuing technique and the practicalities of it, how it has already began to advance the potions field in their own world and how her ‘protection potion’ has generated interest. Archie can see the moment Professor Snape begins to think that, just for a single moment, Harry might be on to something here. Given that the man has spent the entirely of it sneering, glaring, and launching thinly veiled insults as the native Harry Potter of this world, Archie’s not sure if he should be surprised or not that his cousin has managed to hook the potioneer in. Surprised because this Severus Snape is a vicious fuck that hasn’t had time to mellow out like the one back home has, the exact kind his dad would have predicted the Snivellus of his childhood to grow up to become. Then again, Harry is Harry.

“Yeah. And you don’t?” Now that, that boggles Archie’s mind. A world where Aunt Lily and Uncle James are dead? Yeah, not entirely unbelievable; all people die eventually. But a world where Harry Potter isn’t mad about potions? That’s something Archie struggles to believe in.

Potter (Archie will continue to call him Potter because Harry is Harry; he is not calling his cousin by his own middle name, that’d be far too weird) shakes his head in negative, the both of them watching Harry take a potion out of her ever present potions bag, pouring it in a circle around her and then spreading her arms wide, her eyes locking with Archie’s in a silent question.

Huffing a laugh, Archie flicks a stunner at his cousin, watching it ping off of Harry’s Protection Potion with a sharp zing to disperse against the roof.

“See?” Harry declares, her arms spread wide as Snape- well, doesn’t quite gape but it’s a close thing.

“I’m not actually sure if Harry’s a genius-” Archie runs a hand through his own hair before shortening the length of it ever so slightly, just until it stops tickling at the back of his neck. “-or if she just works that hard. But she’s bloody good at potions.” She’s bloody good at everything, in truth. It’d always lingered at the back of his mind, the acknowledgement that someday, he’d have to take over as Arcturus Black again with a legacy he could never live up to. In truth, it’s pure luck things have fallen in such a way that Rigel Blacks accomplishments can be laid at Harry’s feet and yet, doesn’t pave her way to Azkaban. And, not irrationally, a part of him feels guilty for the sweeping relief that’d come with the fact Harry could state she’d done those things; solved the sleeping sickness, slayed the basilisk, won the Triwizard Tournament.

That’s all Harry. Improving the world one hard-earned miracle at a time.

While Archie is just a boy who wants to heal.

There’s a silence between the two of them as they watch Snape interrogate Harry, who is busy applying the solution to her potion, all the while Professor Dumbledore talks in hushed whispers with Alternate Dad. That’s… that’s a sight to see.

This Sirius wasn’t broken by Mum’s death, didn’t slowly patch himself back together again. This Sirius was (according to Potter) broken by the betray of a close friend (Pettigrew, no surprises there, still an asshole in a different universe), and never had a chance to recover, given his stay in Azkaban. Still cool that he broke out of it though. Dad’ll be happy to hear that his alternate self is just as awesome as he is, if significantly unluckier.

He doesn’t have his own Archie.

A part of Archie aches at the thought of it.

“What about you then?” Potter asks, plucking a slice of toast from the table, looking him over again and Archie does his best not to straighten under the weight of the other boy’s gaze. The green may not be as bright, but it’s still Harry Potter eyeing him quizzically; there’s an instinctive reaction there.

“Me? I go to AIM, that’s the American school most English muggleborns and halfbloods attend. They have the best healing track in the world; it’s the whole reason I wanted to go. I want to be a healer. So, Harry and I swapped places. We’ve been acting as each other for the past four years.” Four years of a ruse, four years of turning his head at every ‘Mr Potter’ and ‘Harry’. While it’s nice to be known as himself again, there’s still a lingering discontent. Everything had worked out nicely. Maybe just a little to nicely.

“So, she went to Hogwarts?” Potter asks, clearly struggling with a way to address Harry and Archie can’t blame him, not really. If he had a female version of himself running around here, he’d be weirded out too. Given how he’d experimented with his talents upon first receiving them, he’s got a damn good idea of how a female Arcturus Black would look. Smoking hot, of course, but that’d make it so much weirder.

Not to say it isn’t weird to see male Harry but, given how until recently Harry had been wearing some bastardised mix of their faces, he’s still not used to her natural face. So, the instinctive flinch of seeing the male version isn’t there yet.

“Yeah, Harry went to Hogwarts. She’s saved several lives as well because of it,” Archie admits, slathering his own toast with butter before taking a hearty bite. He chews thoughtfully, doing his best not to frown at the lack of bacon and eggs. Yes, it’s an eventful morning with their sudden arrival, but is that any excuse for such a boring breakfast? He doesn’t think so, but then again, maybe boring breakfasts are the norm in this world? He really hopes not, but that’d be just their luck.

As if finding themselves in another universe isn’t poor luck altogether.

“And you’ve really got no Voldemort?” Potter asks, the scepticism thick in his voice and Archie gives a sharp nod, still reeling over the thought of Riddle pulling a Grindelwald on them. Oh, he no doubt has the power, the knowledge and the drive for it; that much is evident from the way Harry has spoken of him in the past. But, it is just so difficult to think about it. A world where Harry could attend Hogwarts under her own name, but there’d been a decade or so of war. Not outright way, but some awful kind of guerrilla tactics, attack and hide, fearmongering to bring the public low.

The sheer amount of damage it’d cause makes him feel sick to the stomach.

“Miss Potter, Mr Black. I would like to speak to you both in private.”

They all fall quiet at Professor Dumbledore’s request, Harry still half rooting through her bag to produce some other marvel to hand off to the shell-shocked looking Snape.

Archie had been unaware the man could ever be reduced to such a state but, Harry in full throttle potions-mode without previous exposure? Yeah, that’d probably do it.

“S’fine with me.” Archie stands with a yawn, shovelling the last of his toast between his lips before looking to Harry. She nods once, slow and with a hard line to her lips.

That’s not a particularly promising expression.


	4. Chapter 4

“The Potion Guild was destroyed?”

Only, it’s worse than just that.

Harriet Potter reels her legs up to her chest a little more, the heels of her feet digging into the plush fabric of the air chair she’s chosen to sit herself upon. It’s one thing to know that, with a Dark Lord running around in this dimension, things will be different here. It’s another thing entirely to see the undisputed proof laid bare before her eyes.

The Black Family Tapestry stretches across the wall adjacent from her, hundreds of faces upon the parchment but an overwhelming majority have a death date. Some are missing entirely. 

Regulus Black is deceased, dead at the tender age of eighteen. 

Caelum is missing entirely; there’s not a single child branching off from Bellatrix, though her sister Andromeda has indeed been blasted from the tree as had happened back home. 

Archie’s gone too. Aunt Diana has never been on the family tree because the Sirius Black of this world never married her. Harry’s cousin doesn’t exist here which means this Harry grew up without an Archie. 

She cannot quote wrap her head around that thought; the very idea of Archie not being their, of their being a blank space where he’s always been, is almost incomprehensible. 

Not even the assurance she’d get to go to Hogwarts is worth the absence of Arcturus Black.

“This world sucks balls,” Archie grunts, throwing himself dramatically across the sofa, draping one arm over his forehead and fanning his face dramatically with the other. 

They’ve left the breakfast table before any of the other children in this house could come down and begin introducing themselves. It’s not that Harry is trying to be reclusive, only that... there will be faces she’s knows attached to memories that don’t recognise her, that don’t know her. 

This Ginny and Ron and Fred and George do not have the same backstory as the ones she knows; they haven’t dealt with Hogwarts madness alongside her in some respects; she hasn’t bantered with this Ginny, duelled with this Ron, pranked these twins. They are, in effect, strangers with the same face. 

Never mind the fact this Hermione won’t know Archie in the slightest and her love struck cousin is probably going to be mooning over her to deal with the fact the one he is actually head over heels for isn’t here. Harry doesn’t get that, doesn’t understand how Archie can look at Hermione and just know he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. 

She comprehends physical attraction (Draco, Caelum, Leo, Aldon, to name a few). But there’s a difference between looking at someone and thinking their pretty and wanting to spend the rest of her life with them. 

Regardless, she can’t exactly focus on that right now when she’s busy dealing with the fact they’re in an alternate dimension, one Professor Dumbledore (far more worn down and wary than the one she knows) had regretfully informed her he may not be able to help her out of. 

She hadn’t truly considered asking for the man’s help until he’d informed her that the dimension-travelling visitors are unfortunately not his top priority. Harry had just assumed that she’d be able to deal with it all herself, as always. They have managed to get into this mess, surely it can’t be difficult pulling themselves out of it? 

Besides, she’s got too much going on back home to slack off on trying to return by wallowing in the depression of her situation. 

“This place is lacking a distinctly Archie flair,” Harry admits, straightening up on her chair before turning to Archie with a smile. “I think we should take a look at the Black Family Potions lab here.” After all, if the native Sirius had spent a decade in Azkaban (a foreboding thought given her circumstances) then than means the basement has yet to be changed into the Black Underground Tropical Family Getaway. As such, there’s still a place she can brew here, despite a lack of Potion Guild or the uninhabited Potter Place. 

“Urgh, is potions all you think about?” Archie bemoans, slouching further into the soft furnishings, looking rather like he wished to become one with the chair than to simply sit upon it. Harry eyes him warily. He’s taking the fact his alternate self is non-existent remarkably well.

As if reading her mind, Archie sits himself up and fires off a dashing smile. “Can’t expect an Archie is every universe. Too much charm for the multiverse to contain.” 

“Too many of you would probably cause damage, yes.” Archie huffs, puffing up like an offended cat and even the slick curls he’s grown himself fluff up with the motion. 

“Just, put a pin in the potions thing for now, Harry. I was thinking... it’d be nice to do something for Alto-Dad. He’s stuck in here, so maybe we can bring the outside to him.”

Harry’s silent for a moment, lips slowly pressing into a hard frown. “It sounds like you are trying to get me to agree to another ruined potion’s lab.” Even as se says it though, Harry recognised that she cannot argue against it. This world is in a significantly more delicate situation that her own. Oh, certainly they are on the brink of something back home, what with the Diary Voldemort running about the place, hopping from body to body and instigating a mutiny among Riddle’s followers. But it’s not the post-war gearing up for a second-war that is running beneath the surface like a live curse here. The undercurrent of untapped magic is making Harry’s hair stand up on end, making her magic churn in her guts with anticipation for something she won’t be sticking her nose into. 

All Harry wants to do is to get back home before Riddle can turn society with his cookie cutter, pureblood saving ideals. Or worse, before Diary Voldemort can tear it all apart. 

That and, apparently, transform the Black Family Potions lab into an underground getaway. That hurts to admit. 

Maybe she can weasel her way into a Hogwarts lab during their displacement here? 


End file.
